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East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Student Works 8-2002 Waiting for Mary Jane: A Collection of Modern Appalachian Short Stories in the Joycean Tradition. Lorie Ann Wright East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Wright, Lorie Ann, "Waiting for Mary Jane: A Collection of Modern Appalachian Short Stories in the Joycean Tradition." (2002). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 700. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/700 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Waiting for Mary Jane: A Collection of Modern Appalachian Short Stories in the Joycean Tradition ______________________________________ A thesis presented to the faculty of the Department of English East Tennessee State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in English ____________________________________ by Lorie Ann Wright August 2002 __________________________________ Dr. Fred Waage, Chair Dr. Roberta Herrin Dr. Edwin Williams Keywords: Creative Writing, James Joyce, Appalachia, Feminist Writing ABSTRACT Waiting for Mary Jane: A Collection of Modern Appalachian Short Stories in the Joycean Tradition by Lorie Ann Wright This thesis consists of a collection of short stories stylistically reminiscent of the works of James Joyce yet with an Appalachian and feminist voice. Waiting for Mary Jane should appeal to readers interested in experimental styles as well as feminist and Appalachian literature. The protagonist of the collection is Mary Jane, a female from present day East Tennessee. The reader experiences her life from age three to thirty. The introduction to the collection explores the link between James Joyce, Appalachia, Feminist writing, and the short stories. Structurally and thematically the collection reflects the works of James Joyce by using the concept of epiphany and experimental styles evolving from Joyce's Ulysses. As Mary Jane ages she changes from a pre-teen who longs for male acceptance from all surrounding men, including her farmer father, to a grown woman whose mental well-being is far more important than her outward appearance. 2 CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………. 2 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………. 4 2. SUMMERS …………………………………………………………………… 13 Summer of 1978: Pigs and Piss ……………………………………………….. 13 Summer of 1979: Amy ……………………..…………………………………. 17 Summer of 1986: Puppets for the Lord ………………..……………………… 22 3. THE PEOPLE WAITING …………………………………………………….. 26 4. THE OBEDIENT MAN ..……………………………………………………… 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………… 71 VITA ……………………………………………………………………………………… 72 3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I had been writing for twelve years before my formal introduction to Joyce. James Joyce is a familiar, and somewhat dreaded, name to an English student. The mere mention of Joyce’s Ulysses could make even the most dedicated literary student cringe. Personally, I couldn’t see what James Joyce could do for me, a student of Appalachian literature and folk tales more than the typical academic literature of Europe. I was mistaken. I finally met him in the early part of my graduate school career in a seminar in James Joyce. I had heard several comments about the difficulty of Joyce’s writing and was thus starting the class with mixed emotions. The class began with Dubliners. After reading the first few stories, I realized that readability and time were no longer an issue. Joyce’s concept of epiphany had captured me. In Stephen Hero the term “epiphany” is described as “a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself” (Cuddon 233). These frozen moments in time enthralled me as both the reader and a writer. I wanted to be Joyce and write the stories of the common people scratching out a living in my everyday world. I wanted to write about epiphanies and dare to write what happens after the epiphany is over. As the class continued we read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and then spent about two months going, chapter by chapter, through Ulysses. The universality of Joyce’s world began to shine through the pages as I learned about Stephen and Joyce’s entwined life. I wanted to share my epiphanies in a work of fiction. For me this was a matter of writing about my home and 4 my experiences. Since the start of my college career, dreams of becoming a new type of Appalachian writer invaded my mind. By combining some of Joyce’s techniques and my own words, the dream would become reality. I wanted to write with a new, modern Appalachian voice based on the world I grew up in, not the dated, inaccurate, stereotyped images normally associated with this kind of regional writing. The coalmines and granny women of my parents’ generation are not part of my Appalachian upbringing and not a part of my writing. My stories reflect the rural, but industrial and educated, influences of my childhood. Because I am an Appalachian, my loosely autobiographical stories are Appalachian. I started Joyce-inspired, regional writing by determining what one event had changed me the most. What had I seen or done that fit in the category of epiphany? I instantly knew that I had to tell about Mrs. Fisher and what I imagined her life to be. Thus I started writing “The People Waiting,” which becomes the middle story in my collection. “The People Waiting” tells the story of one day, or more accurately one shift, in the life of Mary Jane, a hospital employee who helps families with loved ones in the intensive care unit. Mary Jane has just learned that she is expecting a baby and this thought intrudes into and influences each thought. Mary Jane, as a slightly autobiographical character, is the Stephen in my collection. She is my voice, altered in fiction. Mary Jane starts her workday early, by six, and on this particular day she is distracted and in a fairly negative mood. She can’t figure out how to tell her husband, of whom she isn’t overly fond, that she is pregnant with their first child. Her thoughts are open to the reader as most of this 5 story is written in Joyce-inspired stream of consciousness. Her thoughts are concentrated on her pregnancy, her work, and the music playing in the car .1 Stream of consciousness, or interior monologue, is defined as a literary device that “seeks to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind” (Cuddon 645). The term was originally used in the field of psychology but soon found life in the hands of early twentieth-century writers such as Joyce (Cuddon 645). Mary Jane’s thoughts are intrinsic to the reader because they intimately illustrate the growth of Mary Jane from adolescence to womanhood. She reveals herself as a Joycean female. She is kind on the outside, politely conforming to the rules of her society and the mandates of her job. She thinks about the baby and her recent past as she starts the slow transformation from individual to employee. Her worker self is automatic, almost mechanical. Through her thoughts the emotional void of the work is shown. Mary Jane the advocate drolls out speeches from memory to answer questions of distraught family members. Mary Jane spends most of this shift working with Mrs. Fisher, an older lady whose husband is near death. Mrs. Fisher, who has been in the hospital with her husband for months, is one of the familiar faces that Mary Jane recognizes and from whom Mary Jane gathers strength. Mary Jane learns about love from this couple. Mary Jane and Mrs. Fisher represent the kind of females common in Joyce’s writing. Both women are not what they appear to be. They have a public persona that thinly veils their true 1 All song lyrics mention in “The People Waiting” are from the 1995 re-release of Jim Croce: Photographs and Memories by Atlantic Records. 6 identity. In a recent article on the dark mother motif in Joyce’s works, Linda Rohrer Paige says: She may appear, at first, a positive portrait, but the reader of Joyce’s Dubliners soon discovers that there is something wrong with the mother—all mothers, whether they be real mothers or surrogates…their “goodness” most decidedly tainted, Dubliners’ mothers often seem ineffectual or hardened, sometimes even wildly or sadly perverted. Paige’s words perfectly describe the two mothers presented in my story. Mary Jane is a mother able to turn emotions on and off like water from a spout. She wants to be seen as the perfect woman but can’t even start her day without mentally cursing her husband. How can this Mary Jane be a good mother? Mrs. Fisher also has an alternative side. In the waiting room she sits, physically and emotionally drained, waiting for her husband to die. She is publicly stoic but constantly seeks shelter in a dream world of hazy memories. She appears strong but actually is frightened of her future as a widow. When she recalls John’s childhood she remembers him as her only child, but still a distant outsider in the marriage. She is mother second and wife first. Mrs. Fisher and Mary Jane are competing images of women dealing with distinct and irreversible changes in their personal lives. Mrs. Fisher is terrified of being left alone while Mary Jane is scared of never being alone again.

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